Blu's Album Release Anything But 'Heavenly'

He's been showered with praise and awards from this Web site and fans, but the journey of L.A.-based emcee Blu to get his debut album Below the Heavens out to fans was a painstaking one last summer.

With his Exile-produced opus waiting to hit stores from iTunes to mom-and-pops, L.A.-based indie Sound In Color was in the midst of switching distributors, from Navarre to Koch, Blu's manager Jonathan Kim told HipHopDX. (Navarre was later acquired by Koch, he added).

As result, with the street date of June 26, 2007 showing up in ads in Hip Hop magazines, many fans were undoubtedly disappointed to find the album was nowhere to be found. Disgruntled by the shuffle, which Kim said was unfortunate but "was no excuse," Sound In Color made the album available on iTunes in mid-July. Below the Heavens was finally shipped to retail in August, Kim said.

The caveat in all of this for Blu was that his album actually sold "two to three times" more online than in physical CDs, Kim said. The CDs have sold out, and another run of 1,000 copies is on the way, Kim said.

In the meantime, Blu, a relentless touring artist, is in the studio putting the finishing touches on a collabo project with Detroit emcee Ta'arach.The duo calls themselves C.R.A.C Knuckles, and anticipate the release of their album via Ta'arach's Tres Records in April. The album will be entirely produced by Ta'Raach, according to Kim. Two tracks from the album will be "Love Don't" and "Buy Me Lunch."

With their Sound in Color travails behind them, Blu and his team aren't planning to look back.

"They will never have anything to do with anything with Blu for the future," Kim said.